Case Number 02552

Girls, Girls, Girls

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All Rise...

The Charge

"If I should live to be ninety I will never forget, the little shrimp
and the song he sang as he jumped into the net"—Song of the
Shrimp

Opening Statement

It's a shame that whenever someone mentions the name "Elvis
Presley" nowadays, the same old tired clichés and ridiculous jokes
come to mind: the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, the tacky sequined
jumpsuits, the legion of pathetic half-hearted impersonators and that glorious
monument to the tacky and plebian—Graceland. For someone so important to
the history, creation and acceptance of rock and roll to be whittled down to a
white trash redneck stereotype, the bumpkin as a rube with a squalid taste in
fashion and friends is grossly unfair. But it is partly his own fault, or better
yet, the fault of the people who worked for and around him. Unlike the Beatles,
who carefully guarded their image and product to the point of virtually
obscurity (but continuing popularity and respectability), Elvis' handlers took
any and all opportunities to cheapen his image and potential legacy for the sake
of a dollar and a percentage. How else does one explain the 100+ albums released
or, most disconcerting, the 30+ films he made. With the creation and marketing
of each new piece of Presley product, a little more of his polished veneer was
slowly chipped away. Girls, Girls, Girls is an example of the lightweight
fare his handlers hoisted him into. Now available on DVD, it allows modern
audiences to see the King as commodity, his boundless talents reduced to singing
songs about seafood.

Facts of the Case

Ross Carpenter runs a charter fishing business off the coast of Hawaii for
his adoptive parents. When illness requires the elderly couple to sell all the
boats and move to Arizona, Ross is decidedly upset. He wants a chance to buy
back the sailboat where he lives, since long ago he and his now deceased father
had built it from scratch. But before he can gather together the funds, two
opposing forces walk into his life and disrupt it. Johnson is a tacky tuna boat
owner who buys the sloop out from under Ross, but then offers him a chance to
"buy it back" by indenturing him to captain his fishing fleet. And
while performing at a nightclub with his on again, mostly off again girlfriend,
the turgid torch singer Robin, Ross meets Laurel, a feisty young woman who seems
to be running from something. He's intrigued by her, and soon they grow very
found of one other. Just when it seems like things are going his way, Johnson
sells Ross' boat to an anonymous buyer. Dejected, Ross escapes to Paradise Cove
to stay with his second "family" of Asian friends and associates.
Little does Ross know that someone close to him bought the boat to give him what
he wanted and to make him happy.

The Evidence

Note to the newcomer: Elvis Presley movies have a great deal in common with
that ever-popular disposable youth culture invention: bubblegum pop. Once you've
seen (heard) one, you've about seen (heard) them all. This wasn't always the
case. Initially, great care was used to manufacture the perfect showcase for the
King's limited skills in front of the camera. His natural charisma was
exploited, while his naïve southern boy persona was magnified. With success
came laziness, and his cinematic efforts began to find a particular formulaic
rhythm. Similar plot structures were devised. The King was always a down on his
luck loner from humble beginnings (Elvis is a penniless carnie with a chip on
his shoulder) whose adventures lead him to a usually outlandish or action packed
conclusion (Elvis devises a system of weights and pulleys to successful drag the
freighter/opera house up the side of the Amazonian mountain). There was always a
love interest, or two. And oddly, for a man who was known to record some of the
most fiery roots music this side of the Mississippi, the King was usually not
featured belting out some rambunctious R&B or scorching rockabilly. Instead,
he was saddled with ballads about clamdiggers and rave-ups about the Rotary
Club. Obviously, the main attraction to an Elvis Presley film was a chance to
glimpse His Majesty 40 feet high, a larger than life creation of media and myth
that smoldered with an unspoken darkness and burned with an undeniable sexual
power.

Girls, Girls, Girls appears at the top downward edge of Presley's
motion picture filmography, near the pre-Beatles peak of his popularity and
professional arc. On all fronts, it is a fairly innocuous, light bit of
non-offensive entertainment (unless we are discussing racial issues; more
on that later) that only hopes to make you toe-tappingly happy for 90 minutes.
The unassuming tale of a fisherman who just wants the boat he built with his
Daddy is straightforward, and if viewed without a great deal of expectations or
pre-conceived bias, it entertains thoroughly. But it is in no means a great
piece of cinematic art, nor is it a very good film. Elvis outings hardly ever
are. There is a true sense of showmanship (and the accompanying
component—the big con) when it comes to a Presley presentation. Never
once do you buy him as a beat down working class stiff who just needs a
break to get what he more or less rightfully deserves. And there is never a
great deal of obstacle in his way, as if all this poor seaman needed was a good
business manager and his prayers and sailing woes would be addressed. So,
technically, these are not movies so much as they are extended video
reinterpretations of the Presley image (kind of like numerous career oriented
costumes for your Barbie doll). There is a real effort to bring the ruler of
rock down off his throne, to make him more human and approachable to his fan
base by saddling him with issues that everyday shmoes can relate to.

Problem is, Girls, Girls, Girls loses sight of this conceit a few
times. Elvis is, without a doubt, one of the great voices and interpreters of
music in its history. And the movie forgets this, constantly undermining his Joe
Regular persona with heavenly singing skill. Whenever he opens his mouth
onscreen, the entire enterprise vibrates with electricity. Even when he is
singing that horrible half-hearted show tune tripe that his films are full of,
his presence and precision are undeniable. There are a few good rockers here
(the classic "Return to Sender," the locomotive "I Don't Wanna Be
Tied") Unintentionally, though, the lesser musical numbers in Girls,
Girls, Girls play as Top
Secret!-style satiric comedy, since many revolve around such seafaring
themes as fish, lobster, and (a personal favorite) "The Song of the
Shrimp." Who else but the enigmatic boy from Tupelo could sell a sea
chantey about a lonely little krill giving up his life for the benefit of a
little Creole gumbo? It's always amazing that when tribute/compilation albums
are made to celebrate Mr. TCB, more adventurous artists (like The Residents, who
had their own Presley oeuvre interpretation with "The King and Eye")
don't seek out lunacy like this to sink their King credits into. But music only
makes up a third of these films. And it's the other two thirds where some
problems come to a discouraging head.

One bothersome flaw with the movie though, is one that could not have been
intended and seems to work at cross-purposes. The filmmakers obviously wanted to
humanize the Asian characters, turning them in well-rounded, developed
characters instead of negative stereotypes. But any good ground that is gained
in the scripting or performances is trashed once the ersatz Chinese goofy gong
music kicks in and Elvis attempts to warble in Mandarin or Cantonese. Like
Flower Drum Song or a radical rethinking of Disney's long unreleased
Uncle Remus faux racist kiddie flick (just call this movie Sarong of the
South) the "ah so—me flappy dicky long time" mentality
starts to eke out and the whole, fun tone of the film starts to falter. It's not
that all the Asian characters smile like chipmunks, scream "no ticky no
washy" or squint up their eyes and mispronounce "L"s and
"R"s like a Benny Hill sketch. In a similar vein to those
aforementioned Tin Pan Alley errors, a decidedly Caucasian, western stench rises
up from the treatment of Eastern culture and individuals, cheapening everything
that, otherwise, the makers have tried to avoid. You can see a small amount of
grace and dignity peeking through the Peking muck. But more times than not, a
decidedly Charlie Chan vibe permeates Paradise Cove.

Another distraction is the location and technological limitations of the
early '60s. In these ultra modern days of computer technology and digital
disguises, the use of in-studio "outdoor" sets and blue screen
intercutting is quite jarring. One long sequence where Elvis and the evil
Johnson fight onboard the sailboat switches from actual ocean footage to faked
boat brawling so often that the viewer needs a Dramamine. And when our two
lovers spend a romantic evening in the moonlight, only to have the sunset
chroma-keyed in around them, you wonder what the resistance was to having the
stars in nature itself looking at the beautiful surroundings. Hawaii here seems
sumptuous, but not enough use is made of it. There are very few scenes that
showcase the natural beauty, and even the quaint town and fishing village the
characters live and work in looks more soundstage than real world. Fortunately,
on the acting front, there are no such "phony" troubles. Stella
Stevens is fine, but what she is doing in this movie is anyone's educated guess.
She has very few scenes, most of which take place in the tacky island nightclub
she works in. Her character seems ancillary, only involved to be bitter and
bitchy to our hero (and you can bet dollars to daiquiris that's not her singing
voice). Laurel Heath is adequate, if a little cold as the rich girl. What Elvis
sees in her is a matter for his heart alone (and the script only) to explain.
And the King does a halfway decent job here, looking comfortable and ruggedly
outdoorsy, even if you can catch him looking for offstage cue cards and
occasionally delivering his lines after a tell-tale jump cut.

Faults aside, Girls, Girls, Girls is a fine 90 minutes of old
fashioned star driven entertainment. The music, for the most part, is good and
the scenery (when it can be seen) breathtaking. But leave it to the Lords of
Desolate Digital Presentation, Paramount, to create a permanent record of the
King's cinematic career so devoid of extras that to call it barebones would be
to give it specs it, frankly, does not have. This DVD has no extras to
speak of. Not a trailer. Not a filmography. Not even a list of songs featured.
Nothing. On the other hand, Paramount did remaster the film and presents it in a
mint, pristine 1.85:1 original aspect ratio transfer that is phenomenal. The
water is as blue as cobalt and the greenery lush and fertile. Sonically, a
Beatles / A Hard Days Night style 5.1 soundtrack has been created which
does the movie, and the music in particular, somewhat of a disservice. As stated
in the review of recent re-release of the Fab Four classic, separation in the
mix goes against how music is created and mastered. You are not supposed to hear
the Jordanaires apart from the accompaniment and the 5.1 doesn't add a lot to
the aural presentation of the non-musical scenes, so why it's needed is a good
question. But a least Paramount offers a restored and substantially cleaned up
mono track as an alternative that preserves the film's original soundtrack
integrity. And it does sound wonderful. It will be a complete matter of personal
preference which you choose.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

It's time to call a thief a thief, and that is what Elvis Presley
is/was…a good-looking, heavily promoted thief. While he got rich and ran
off to Hollywood to capitalize on his fame, the original talents behind the
music he was ripping off, the Little Richards and Chuck Berrys of the world were
still trying to find a bathroom they could use, a diner they could eat at, and a
seat anywhere but at the back of the bus. It's hard not to sympathize with the
sentiment stated by Public Enemy's Chuck D in the rap group's seminal hit
"Fight the Power." Elvis may indeed be a hero and the King of Rock and
Roll to most, but he should never really be considered anything other than Pat
Boone with better fashion sense. Like that infamous white buck passer, all our
Mississippi truck driver did was sing like a black man and make a mint off the
minstrel imitation. It's only fitting that, as years have gone by, he has turned
into the running joke to many and his influence on modern music toned down from
King to Duke. There is no denying his cultural impact, and the fact that he
could make a weak waste of celluloid like Girls, Girls, Girls and the
public would still support him proves it. But isn't it really a greater
reflection of a racists society's reluctance to embrace diversity and equality
than having anything at all to do with Elvis Presley's screen presence?

Closing Statement

It's hard to imagine any rock star, current or just after Elvis, who could
make movie after movie and still have Hollywood believe them bankable. So many
have tried (Madonna, Sting), and with the exception of a certain Material Girl
who just doesn't know when to give up, most all have seen their cinematic
fortunes fall, ticket sales telling them to concentrate on singing. Elvis was a
fluke, and a one of a kind talent and that is why a film like Girls, Girls,
Girls works. It capitalizes on his good attributes (singing and sex appeal)
and minimized those areas where he failed to excel (mainly in the acting
department). This movie represents the last year of Elvis' reign over American
popular, youth and musical culture. In just a few short months, four mop-topped
boys from Liverpool, England would redefine the landscape the way the brash,
ballsy kid from Mississippi had done a decade before. The King would have to
reestablish his kingdom in the decidedly more adult sin city of Las Vegas. Time
and the tabloids have not been nice to the Presley persona. But at least thanks
to Paramount and Girls, Girls, Girls, we can witness his golden age in
all its faux Hollywood, hip gyrating and horny hep cat bravado. There will never
be another Elvis. Unlike his movies, he was one of a kind.

The Verdict

Girls, Girls, Girls is found not guilty by the Court, not only because
of the evidence and the legend involved, but His Honor cannot fault a film that
features a love song about a shrimp.